The stretch run is here and Paul Pierce finds himself in an unfamiliar place right now – well rested.

Pierce’s strong play which catapulted the C’s to victory in eight of the last nine games, came too late for it to affect the voting by the league’s coaches for All-Star reserves.

So instead he rested up for what he anticipates will be a tough road ahead with nine of the C’s next 11 games away from the Garden.

For Boston to make the kind of second-half surge that we saw last season, they will once again need big-game performances from Pierce.

“When you play so many games, sometimes mentally and physically you get fatigued,” Pierce said. “But with the way we were playing, who knows? Maybe the guys wanted to keep going. But I felt at this point in the season, my body needed, our minds needed … there’s so much we’ve been going through with the injuries. The last one with Barbosa, it really took a toll on us mentally even more.”

via A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com